Brett Kavanaugh's Yearbook Included Cruel Joke

Kavanaugh & Friends Made Jokes Calling A Girl Promiscuous In High School Yearbook

One of the 65 women who signed a letter in defense of Judge Brett Kavanaugh right after he was accused of sexual assault was the butt of a cruel joke on his 1983 yearbook page, where he used her name and implied she was promiscuous.

The New York Times reports that the name of Renate Schroeder Dolphin, then a student at a Catholic girls’ school, appeared more than a dozen times in the yearbook, including a group photo of football players, including Kavanaugh, under the description "Renate Alumni." Two classmates of Kavanaugh told the Times that the Renate mentions in the yearbook were part of the athletes' "unsubstantiated boasting about their conquests."

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Kavanaugh's lawyer said he and Dolphin shared a kiss while in high school. Dolphin denies it happened, but said she was hurt by the insinuation that she was promiscuous in high school.

"I learned about these yearbook pages only a few days ago," she told the Times. "I don’t know what ‘Renate Alumnus’ actually means. I can’t begin to comprehend what goes through the minds of 17-year-old boys who write such things, but the insinuation is horrible, hurtful and simply untrue. I pray their daughters are never treated this way."

The Supreme Court nominee's behavior as a teenager has come into focus following allegations that he attempted to rape Dr. Christine Blasey Ford when he was in high school and exposed himself to Deborah Ramirez when he was a college freshman. Both incidents allegedly happened while he was drunk.

In an interview with Fox News Monday, Kavanaugh denied ever committing sexual assault and recognized that at some points in his youth he had drank heavily, saying: "All of us have probably done things we look back on in high school and regret or cringe a bit." According to the Times, his yearbook page made reference to Georgetown Prep's party culture with the phrase "100 kegs or bust" and a mention of his role of "treasurer" at "Keg City Club."

Carol Robles-Román, an attorney and women's rights leader who has extensive experience in judicial selection and vetting, said that if she were on the Senate Judiciary Committee she would ask Kavanaugh about his high school yearbook, because it's full of references to binge-drinking and sexist inside jokes. "That's exhibit A, B, C, and D," she tells Refinery29. "That's a moral character question. While I'm not sure if we'll ever determine the certitude of Ford's allegations, what we do know he was entrenched in a misogynist culture in high school [and college]."

She adds: "If you look at every entry in his high school yearbook line by line, and you look up in Urban Dictionary what they mean... That's what I'd like the Senate Judiciary Committee to ask. These entries are horrific."

This story was originally published at 12:05 p.m. It has since been updated.